One disadvantage to the use of public transportation systems remains the possibility of vehicles, such as busses, trains, light rail, and the like, arriving later or earlier than their scheduled times. A commuter may be irritated by arriving tardy to a destination, missing a train or bus, or simply by spending time waiting for a late vehicle. A public transportation system operator may publish a schedule providing arrival and departure times of vehicles for the system's routes. The public transportation system operator, however, is sometimes unable to keep the schedule, for example at high-traffic times, for reasons such as traffic congestion, inclement weather, commuter load, and vehicle service issues. Additionally, regardless of how well an operator is able to keep a schedule, a commuter who uses public transit or a particular route infrequently, or a commuter from outside of the region in which the particular public transportation system operates, is unlikely to have a schedule readily accessible.
A commuter waiting at a depot or transit stop for a bus or train, for example, may not know with any certainty when the next vehicle will arrive at the station. If a commuter arrives at the stop only a moment before a scheduled arrival time, and the next vehicle does not arrive at that time, the commuter may be uncertain as to whether or not the bus or train may have arrived and departed before-hand, or if or when the vehicle will arrive. Such confusion may, of course, be mitigated by arriving early at the station to avoid missing the bus or train. This approach, however, wastes time, and extends the length of what may already be a long commute, and which may be better spent by the commuter in other more advantageous pursuits.
As such, there is a continuing need in the art for systems and methods that allow commuters to better predict the arrival of a public transportation vehicle at a particular station. The proliferation of internet-enabled devices, such as smartphones and personal computers, additionally make it desirable for such systems and methods to be accessible using such devices. Moreover, other desirable features and characteristics of the present disclosure will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and background.